Staircase

A drab, sincere homosexual drama, essentially a stage two-hander stupidly glossied up and opened out, but still emerging as dreadfully verbose. Burton and Harrison - the latter in the Liz Taylor part - do their best as two Brixton hairdressers whose 30-year relationship is beginning to fray, further taxed by worries about Burton's ailing mum (Nesbitt) and Harrison's impending court appearance on a charge of transvestism. On this evidence, they've already lasted better than Charles Dyer's play. Dudley Moore wrote the musical score, and if you don't recognise Brixton, that's because it was filmed in Paris.